Failure of fire radios a catastrophe

[IdleMonitor]

PETAWAWA - A failure of the communications systems that guide Renfrew County's fire departments during emergency situations could be catastrophic, the town's fire chief is warning council.

Presenting a letter on behalf of the Renfrew County Fire Chief's Association, Chief Steve Knott informed councillors that long standing problems, such as redundancy and interoperability, are posing undue risk and significant liability to municipalities.

Failure of fire radios a catastrophe: chiefs | Pembroke Daily Observer

RENFREW WANTS COUNTY TO LEAD THE WAY ON COMMUNICATION SYSTEM UPGRADES

County council is likely to be flooded with motions from local municipalities to take the lead in updating emergency communication. Renfrew is the latest to send a motion the county's way on the matter, following a letter from the Renfrew County Fire Chief's Association. Renfrew chief Guy Longtin explains to myFM the limitations of the current system.

RenfrewToday.ca

 

[SCPD]

Keeping the Chief informed

Some of the Ontario RR members in and around Renfrew County should write this chief and stress the importance of fireground communications being simplex. Reading the article, it sounds like everything goes thru a repeater.

Also, looking at the database, most everything looks to be VHF. That indicates to me that there's a good chance these frequencies may of been used for quite the while, and the feedline in service may be quite old, and leaking rf like a garden soaker hose.
Perhaps new feedlines and antennas at the sites may be a first step to improving communications.

A good ham swaps his coax out every ten years. Municipalities should do the same.

 

[sirsmiley]

Whats wrong with having a repeater system for portable coverage? If youre going to build it out plan in redundancies..i mean really.....

Do you think the police and large cities use simplex? They use city wide systems....modern repeaters come with monitoring software for measuring the transmitter and power supplies and temperatures and alert well in advance before a failure

 

[R8000]

Whats wrong with having a repeater system for portable coverage? If youre going to build it out plan in redundancies..i mean really.....

Do you think the police and large cities use simplex? They use city wide systems....modern repeaters come with monitoring software for measuring the transmitter and power supplies and temperatures and alert well in advance before a failure

Apparently you have never been in the fire service.

 

[sirsmiley]

Apparently you have never been in the fire service.

I work for a number of them, we use repeaters for all trucks and dispatch, most use a separate simplex for fireground only however many use a trunked system for reliability and portable coverage. the article doesnt talk about any of that....firefighters spend millions on fire trunks and then have tin cans with string generally for a radio system.

 

[webstar22]

I live this area. It is a gong show on the 1 dispatch channel when there is more than one call going on in the county and half the time there is only 1 way communications dispatch can hear the trucks but trucks can't hear dispatch so they start responding via the paging system.

 

[webstar22]

Follow up to this

Renfrew County hits back at fire chiefs over radio | Pembroke Daily Observer

 

[polkaroo]

Meanwhile, the county will be setting aside $25,000 to hire a consultant to develop the technical specifications for an updated communications system with a report coming back to council at the end of the year.

It is recommended that the current fire radio system be replaced with a suitable modern radio communications system that allows for better dispatch and fireground coverage. The current system is based on traditional repeater technology over 50 years old. As well, equipment is reaching the end of its intended lifecycle. Any failure may cause serious injury or death if a first responder finds themselves in a life threatening situation and cannot communicate with others. The county has expanded while technology has improved to provide greater accountability and communications reliability in emergency situations. And yes of course, encryption.


Where's my $25k cheque??!!

 

[IdleMonitor]

Where do you see any mention of encryption?

It is recommended that the current fire radio system be replaced with a suitable modern radio communications system that allows for better dispatch and fireground coverage. The current system is based on traditional repeater technology over 50 years old. As well, equipment is reaching the end of its intended lifecycle. Any failure may cause serious injury or death if a first responder finds themselves in a life threatening situation and cannot communicate with others. The county has expanded while technology has improved to provide greater accountability and communications reliability in emergency situations. And yes of course, encryption.


Where's my $25k cheque??!!

 

[webstar22]

It is recommended that the current fire radio system be replaced with a suitable modern radio communications system that allows for better dispatch and fireground coverage. The current system is based on traditional repeater technology over 50 years old. As well, equipment is reaching the end of its intended lifecycle. Any failure may cause serious injury or death if a first responder finds themselves in a life threatening situation and cannot communicate with others. The county has expanded while technology has improved to provide greater accountability and communications reliability in emergency situations. And yes of course, encryption.


Where's my $25k cheque??!!

encryption for a fire dept is stupid. It is more of a risk than the towers failing.

 

[mikewazowski]

Let's try and keep this discussion related to Renfrew County.

The digital comms on Fireground channels has already been discussed elsewhere.